“With those types of big movies, you’re directing three movies,” Story said in a DGA profile. “There’s the movie you’re shooting, there’s the second-unit action stuff, and there’s the visual effects movie. You’ve got to learn how to deal with all of them.”

Story continued, “The other thing I learned from those two Fantastic Four movies, is that sometimes you can be too lax on how much control you give to the visual effects team, or the production design team, or whoever. If you end up in situations and you’re not happy with certain things, it’s because you didn’t stay on top of them.”

Following Rise of the Silver Surfer, Story did the low-budget indie drama Hurricane Season before taking on Think Like a Man, Ride Along and their respective sequels.

“Doing the big movies with the special effects—that’s not 100 percent what I set out to do,” said Story. “I wanted to get back to what I knew was in my heart. I think as a filmmaker, there’s the bigness of Hollywood, but if you come from small, personal pieces, you want to get back to that at some point.”

20th Century Fox is currently gearing up to shoot a reboot of Fantastic Four -- which is understood to be a smaller scale and grittier version of Marvel Comics' first family than Tim Story's two films were.